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This paper aims to describe two themes of information and knowledge management in building corporate memory through curation in complex systems. The first theme describes the skillsets of new memory curators: curation; appraisal; strategist and manager. The second theme describes four concepts that support information management in complex systems: David Snowden’s just-in-time process; Polanyi’s personal knowing; Wenger’s transactive memory system; and David Snowden’s ASHEN database schema.

Academic journals and professional publications were analysed for educational requirements for information professionals in complex adaptive systems.

The skills described should be readily applied and useful in a complex adaptive system with the four concepts described. The four concepts displayed features indicating each separate concept could be aligned and integrated with the other concepts to create an information sharing model based on synergy between reasoning and computing.

Research is needed into the capability and potential of folksonomies using recordkeeping metadata and archival appraisal to support peer production information and communication systems.

The author has not found any research that links archival appraisal, user-generated metadata tagging, folksonomies and transactive memory systems governance policy to support digital online, co-innovation peer production.

We are reaching the end of the second generation of knowledge management, with its focus on tacit‐explicit knowledge conversion. Triggered by the SECI model of Nonaka, it replaced a first generation focus on timely information provision for decision support and in support of BPR initiatives. Like BPR it has substantially failed to deliver on its promised benefits. The third generation requires the clear separation of context, narrative and content management and challenges the orthodoxy of scientific management. Complex adaptive systems theory is used to create a sense‐making model that utilises self‐organising capabilities of the informal communities and identifies a natural flow model of knowledge creation, disruption and utilisation. However, the argument from nature of many complexity thinkers is rejected given the human capability to create order and predictability through collective and individual acts of freewill. Knowledge is seen paradoxically, as both a thing and a flow requiring diverse management approaches.

The purpose of this article is to focus on the role of networks in organizations as a critical aspect of knowledge management and learning processes.

The article has built on an established technique, namely SNA, by shifting from individuals to identities and then to abstractions.

By making the shifts identified above, a solid and tool‐rich body of research is used as a base on which to build, but in effect the focus is on using the network intelligence rather than assemblies of atomistic individual intelligences: the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, but only if one understands it as a whole.

The article has focused on problem resolution, but the technique also shows potential as a generic innovation tool, and as a possible model to create an alternative mechanism for the distribution of funding within organizations including governments.

The purpose of this paper is to complement a previous article on using the Cynefin framework to make sense of the electronic records management challenge. Its focus is on how to use Cynefin, and the ERM framework developed using it, as an approach to addressing this wicked problem. The aim is to provide examples of how they could be used in practice in different organisational contexts.

Four examples are provided. Empirical research data are used to underpin three of the examples and a thought experiment using published literature informs the fourth.

The examples illustrate the potential value and power of the Cynefin framework as both a practical and conceptual tool in the ERM context. It can be used to address the ERM challenge in different ways: as a strategic approach taking a holistic view and/or as a tactical approach at a more specific granular level. It can be used to inform practice by helping practitioners choose the most appropriate approach dependent on the level of complexity of the issue they are addressing, whether that is for a specific issue, a project or initiative, for planning or for exploratory, sense-making purposes.

The examples draw on one qualitative, empirical set of research data and one published use. Further experimentation and practical use are required; others are encouraged to use Cynefin to test the propositions and provide further examples.

The examples provided can be adopted and/or adapted by records professionals, both practitioners and/or academics, at strategic and tactical levels in different records contexts.

This paper provides examples of adopting a different approach to tackling the wicked problem of managing electronic records using the Cynefin framework as a new lens.

The purpose of this study is to identify the prescribed formative elements of supply chain resilience (SCR) in literature, to compare them with the unique characteristics of high reliability organisations (HROs) and derive lessons useful for improving SCR.

Two systematic literature reviews are carried out as follows: one on SCR and the other on HRO, which identified 107 studies and 18 papers, respectively. The results from the review are presented, analysed and synthesised.

Findings suggest that despite significant similarities in some of the proposed formative elements for SCR and the characteristics of HROs, the strong managerial commitment exhibited in HROs is absent in SCR literature. More importantly, the most cited characteristic of HROs, which is their flexible decision making structure is pointed out as a prima lesson towards developing resilience in supply chains.

A decision making framework to facilitate flexible decision making for supply chains during crisis is presented. Further, practical lessons are pointed out from principles common to both streams of literature such as redundancy, human resource management, collaboration, agility, flexibility, culture and risk avoidance that can be implemented in supply chains.

This paper is the first study to systematically review HROs, adapt a HRO decision making framework and also apply the Cynefin framework to SCR. This, therefore, provides the basis to launch further research into the use of these theories and the role of decision-making in SCR creation.

The aim of this paper is to report the finding of an exploratory research project that considered how public service organizations may conquer the debilitating effects of enterprise dementia.

Building on the seminal research of Michael Earl, this project sought to solicit the view from the front, which in this case are the middle managers of the Canadian public service. Specifically, the aim was to determine which of Earl's schools of knowledge would be most appropriate in curbing the organizational memory loss and taming the information anxiety that are common place today.

The sample of public service middle managers overwhelmingly opted for a single strategy. The organizational school surfaced as the strategy most likely to fit respondents' perceived needs. Through collaboration, Earl's organizational school focuses on maximizing the use of social networks with a view to knowledge sharing.

This paper provides a compendium of knowledge strategies that may be useful for public service executives.

This the first project to consider how Earl's taxonomy of knowledge strategies may be implemented in a Canadian public service environment.

From the perspective of being engaged with training, learning, development over four decades, my view is that HRD has never quite been able to decide whether its focus should be on individual needs (personal development as well as skills and knowledge improvement) or the organization’s business and strategic needs.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the capabilities of Enterprise 2.0 tools align to the tasks knowledge workers perform. The objective is to provide knowledge workers and information architects with a framework that enables the development of a suite of Enterprise 2.0 tools in support of knowledge management across the full knowledge lifecycle.

The capabilities of Enterprise 2.0 tools were mapped against the requirements associated with each of the four main domains (chaotic, complex, knowable and known) of the Cynefin framework.

The Cynefin model provides a useful framework for illustrating how the various tools within an Enterprise 2.0 suite support the different activities/tasks knowledge workers perform. Aligning Enterprise 2.0 tools based on the domain requirements of the Cynefin model allows the classification of these capabilities based on a task‐based framework rather than the traditional feature/function‐based ones.

Application of this framework will help knowledge workers and information architects understand the relationship between technical capabilities and business tasks. This understanding will help both in tool selection with respect to business problem (architects) and also provide clarity of purpose in support of change management/adoption (knowledge workers).

Much of the literature around understanding Enterprise 2.0 tools has focused on a classical feature/function classification. The analysis presented here provides a classification based on the Cynefin model of knowledge creation. This classification model provides a valuable tool to those interested in developing environments that enable collaboration and knowledge generation/capture using these capabilities.